New Front in Battle Over Studies of Animals
Activists take aim at nonresearch colleges
By JEFFREY BRAINARD
Far from the front lines of the nasty fight over laboratory-animal experiments at large research universities, activists are strategically drawing some teaching-oriented institutions into the same battle.
Amherst College, Fairfield University, Francis Marion University, and 10 other institutions, none of which are known for conducting animal experiments, recently signed a pledge not to subject any research animals to "severe" unrelieved pain or distress. The pledge was written by the Humane Society of the United States, which has sent it to a total of 301 presidents at similar institutions.
Signing the pledge was easy, said officials on some of those campuses, because no such research went on there. And that is just what the advocacy group is counting on: a wave of no-fuss pledge signings that will put pressure on larger universities, which do conduct extensive animal research, to follow suit. Read More
This is the same strategy that the HSUS has used to pass legislation to ban gestation and veal crates in Florida and Arizona. They start with those it affects the least to establish a precedent and then go from there. These universities are also feeling pressured to sign it, because the HSUS has promised not to go public with any infractions if they have signed the document. Doesn’t that sound like blackmail?
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